


i’ll walk you home

by Gone_by_dawn



Series: 100 ways to say... criminal minds [5]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Feels, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Mentions of Substance Abuse, Short, a whole lot of emotions, but yeah I was in A Mood when I wrote this, mentions of Tobias Henkel, minor stuff of course bc it's me, okay this one actually is a lil painful, updates every Monday, y’all know the drill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-13 01:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17478329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gone_by_dawn/pseuds/Gone_by_dawn
Summary: Spencer and Derek aren’t known for the late nights they pull at the office, unlike Hotch. But nevertheless, the two find themselves staying longer than either of them would like after a case to catch up on paperwork. Nothing out of the ordinary, until Derek starts to realize that Spencer doesn’t seem to be doing so good...just a late night at the office with your two fav FBI agents (: it was supposed to be sweet but then I wrote half of it while I was Having Some Emotions so...





	i’ll walk you home

**Author's Note:**

> okay listen up the first half of this might be pretty choppy. the second half is a lil angsty. idk if u can tell but I didn't write this all at once and it kinda shows.

Spencer and Morgan were not in the habit of staying at work larer than strictly necessary. There were a few agents (Hotch, mostly, but Emily and Garcia occasionally did too, and JJ came in early if you wanted to count that) who did, but those two were not among them. And so, it was odd that not one but _both_ of them were today.

”Hot chocolate, you’re still here?” A tired Penelope called out, throwing a worried glance at her God of Thunder, who, by all means, should have left hours ago.

Derek looked up from his paperwork to see his one and only Garcia looking down at him with a frown. He sighed, equally confused as to why he was still at Quantico himself.

”Ah, babygirl, it’s these damn files,” he said, bitterly. “They just keep stacking up.”

”Hmm,” she said, thoughtfully. “Well, you know who else is here, working on paperwork...” Her eyes trailed from his desk to Reid’s, smirking suggestively at Derek, who chuckled.

”Behave, Garcia,” he reminded her, grin audible in his voice.

”I’m just saying, you and Boy Wonder...”

Reid chose that minute to look up, visibly disoriented. He glanced over to Derek and Penelope, but wasn’t really seeing them. It was obvious that the kid was lost in his own thoughts, still buried under the paperwork even as he took a break from looking at it.

Derek hated to admit it, but seeing Reid like that knocked the breath out of him. He couldn’t explain why it was that Spencer looked cute when he was zoned out, but he certainly did.

“You’re staring,” Garcia pointed out, in a sing-song voice. Her hand came to rest on his shoulder as she, too, looked over at Reid. Derek didn’t say anything because what could he? He _was_ staring. Staring at Reid, with his glasses resting adorably crooked on his nose and a few rouge stands of hair slipping in front of his face. He made quite a sight to behold, but  _damn_ if he wasn't beholding.

”I’ve got work to do, Doll Face,” he said instead, opting to completely ignore the conversation. He had a reputation to uphold, and gaping at their resident genius wasn’t helping that.

"Mm, you've got drool to clean up, more like it," she teased. He pretended to be affronted but, like always, she wasn't wrong.

"You're a menace to my work performance, Garcia," he said, even as she smiled and started to retreat back to her lair. He simultaneously mean all and none of it, in a way that only interacting with Penelope could do to a person. He really did love her.

"You know, I think she runs solely off coffee and your torment."

Derek whipped around to see Reid, sitting at his desk with a stare directed at Morgan. He seemed more down to Earth than he had been a few minutes ago, but not by much. His eyes were just barely focused, but his lips were ghosting at a smile.

"Is that right?" Morgan asked. Spencer nodded, absentmindedly.

"I've never seen her actually eat, you know. I've worked here for years, and the only thing I've seen her consume has been coffee."

Derek smiled wide at that, knowing damn well that Penelope had a stash of Chinese food in her "cave" that she refused to share with the rest of the team. He never realized that it would lead to her never having been spotted with food.

"And you know what else? I've been conducting a scientific experiment on her. The conclusion I have reached is that she's not mortal."

Morgan actually burst into a chuckle at that, unable to help himself. Spencer winced at the noise (odd) but grinned, looking accomplished. Derek got warm at the thought that the kid had been trying to make him laugh. "That she isn't, Reid. That she isn't."

Spencer smiled again and turned back to his work. He watched a few minutes more as the man slowly slipped into a frown, glaring at the papers laid out across his desk. He almost didn't say anything, but seeing Reid begin to massage his temples drew the line.

"Are you feeling alright?" He asked, halfway out of his seat, regardless. 

Spencer frowned harder but nodded that he was.

"Hey man, talk to me," Derek said. He placed a hand on his shoulder, which the kid seemed to shudder at. He wasn't sure what to make of that.

"It's just kind of bright in here," he muttered. Morgan almost got confused because  _no it wasn't_ when realization struck.

"Reid do you--do you have a migraine?"

Reid continued to stare at his paperwork. He hadn't looked up at all since Derek had approached, and he had no idea if that meant something or not, but everything else had started to make sense. He'd looked dazed and seriously out of it while he'd been talking to Garcia, and Derek's startled laugh had seemed to cause him a brief moment of pain. Not to mention the temples and the lights... the kid was clearly overstimulated.

"Reid, you know that you don't have to do these right now, right? Hotch would understand-"

"I'm not worried about Hotch," he cut in. He sounded so different than he had seconds ago, when he'd been announcing conspiracy theories about their technical analyst. 

"Okay," Morgan said. Okay. Fine. But he'd be damned if he was going to let Spencer sit there and struggle with case files when he clearly wasn't feeling alright. "Screw Hotch, then. But we're getting you home."

Spencer sighed and finally raised his head. When he faced Morgan he just looked...  _tired_. "Morgan, I appreciate the help but I can do this-"

"Yourself?" He scoffed. "Not a chance. Listen, Reid, we all know you're more than capable. But you're part of a  _team_ , remember? We got your back. And I, for one, am not gonna let you sit there all night because of some punkass files, you got that?" Reid blinked. He tossed the boy genius his coat that had been lying on the far end of his desk. "Pack it up, Pretty Boy. You're going home."

Reid contemplated arguing for a bit, but, in the end, he reached for the jacket. Derek smiled.

"I have to take the subway home," he said instead, tugging the article of clothing around his body as he started to gather his things into his bag. Morgan considered cleaning up his own desk before he left, but ultimately decided that it was something that could wait until morning. He had more important matters at home.

"Like hell you do. The subway with a migraine? I'm driving." His words left little room for protest.  

As soon as Spencer had his things all ready, Morgan was pushing him towards the elevator. The other man huffed out a small, if pained, laugh, but complied with the forced movements. While they were waiting (and while Spencer's back was turned) he took the opportunity to divide up the rest of Reid's paperwork between J.J. and Prentiss under the guise of fetching his keys from his desk. He figured that the last thing Reid needed tomorrow was to return to those files, and he knew for a fact that the two woman slipped Reid their own filed from time to time, playfully taking advantage of both his brain and kindness. 

The ding singled that his time was up, and he jogged back over to the elevators in time to step on just before the doors closed shut. Neither of them said much during the short ride, but he was fairly certain that it was mostly because Reid seemed to be using up all his remaining strength not to lean into Derek and pass out. He smiled.

Though he was tempted to help Reid into the passenger seat of his car, even he knew that he was starting to coddle the other man. It was an attractive idea, but also mildly inappropriate for their current relationship. He settled for getting himself into the car and turning heat as quickly as possible to get the car to warm. Winter in Washington was not something to be trifled with.

"You feeling okay, Reid?" he asked. The other man nodded but didn't say much else. 

Derek tried to gauge how bad Reid's migraine was without actually asking. Talking seemed to agitate it, so he made sure the radio was off and tried not to speak more than strictly necessary. He drove carefully, cautious to avoid potholes or sudden turns. Bright lights were definitely a trigger, but there was only so much he could do about that, considering there were streetlights at every corner and headlights on every car. Still, this was infinitely better than the subway.

Finally, they pulled up to Reid's place. Derek's car radio read that it was sometime around midnight, and he tried not to wince at the thought of getting up tomorrow for work. 

"I can go from here," Spencer said, already opening his door to leave. Morgan was faster.

"Oh no you don't" he said. He was out the car and around to Spencer's side before the other man had even grabbed his bag. Spencer huffed out a breath.

"Derek," he started, but the other man cut him off with a glare.

The way Spencer's apartment complex was set up, it was impossible to actually park in front of the buildings. The closest you could get was a garage off to the side, or a parking lot around the back, meaning Spencer would still have to walk nearly a block from the car to his apartment.

"Come on, Reid.  **I'll walk you home**."

Spencer stared at him for a moment, eyes searching his face for God knows what. "Alright," he agreed. He ducked his head and the two waked in an-almost comfortable silence up to his place. They made it halfway to the building before Derek noticed something was bothering Reid. Something more than just a migraine.

Derek was torn between wanting to ask what was wrong, and, at the same time, scared to hear the answer. There were probably dozens of other things that could be troubling the other man, but of course Derek's mind leapt to the worst one. It wasn’t a well-kept secret that Spencer was using, even if none of the team members verbally discussed it. And it’s not that he didn’t want to help him with his struggle, because he did, he really did, but, well, the second the team _officially_ acknowledged that Reid had a drug problem, they were obligated to remove him from the B.A.U. Indefinitely. Truth be told, even while using, Reid was one of the strongest members of their team. The kid had gone through so much with the Henkel case; how would it be fair to fire him over an addiction that he had never wanted? That he’d tried, with a gun to his head, to refuse? It wouldn’t be. They couldn’t. Not in good conscience, anyway. But even with the overhanging threat of his job on the line, they all reached out to subtly help the man regardless, each in their own way. Despite that, it’d gone unsaid that, as long as Reid was getting help for his dilaudid abuse, none of them would bring it up any further.

As far as he knew, the kid was clean. Had been for months, at least. And Derek was _so_ _goddamn_ _proud_ of him. He wished he could say as much to the other man.

”Derek?” Reid asked. His voice was quiet, like he wasn’t quite used to talking yet. Where had the energetic genius who couldn’t sit still gone? “You spaced out. Are you alright?”

He hadn't even noticed that they'd almost arrived at the door.

Morgan sucked in a breath and turned to face Reid, stopping their movement along the pavement. Reid’s nose and cheeks were red from the cold, and his hands were shoved into his pockets in a vain attempt to stay warm. _This_ was the man he’d somehow put before everything else, without even realizing he’d done so. This scrawny, sickly thing with a sweater vest and shaggy hair and a heart too big to be wearing on his sleeve. This was the man. And he was looking at Morgan like he’d grown another head.

Derek flashed the kid a smile, the most reassuring one he had, and he hoped it didn’t betray how much his heart reacted at just the sight of Spencer standing there. As much as the team loved to tease that Reid was the emotional one out of them, every damn one of them had the biggest soft spot for the genius. Morgan especially. 

"Yeah, I'm okay, Spencer. Just thinking."

Spencer might've blushed, but at the same time it was just as likely that he was getting red from the chill of the wind. Derek wasn't about to risk a cold to find out. Without another word, he stepped aside so that Reid could unlock the door to the building. The other man stepped through, but paused at the doorway.

"Thank you, Derek," he said. Derek waved. the gratitude away, dismissing the idea that he was in any way put out by making sure he got home okay.

"Any time," he said, and could only hope that Spencer realized he meant it.

Spencer stared at him for a moment longer from the doorway. Morgan started to get the feeling like the man was debating something, and almost said something else, but he didn't get the chance. Before he could do anything, Spencer gave him another small smile, turned on his heel, and disappeared up the stairs. Morgan watched him go for a few seconds, telling himself that he was just looking out for the other agent. Once Spencer was out of sight, he turned to leave himself.

He got home late that night, and was immediately reminded why he didn't stay at work as long as Hotch. He skipped the meal and shower part of his routine completely, and launched himself straight into bed without even changing out of his shirt. He woke up the next morning, aching and still tired. But, when the memories of last night came flooding back to him, and he remembered Spencer, blushing outside in the cold but looking still grateful, he found that he didn't mind as much as he could have. He even laughed, picturing how J.J. and Prentiss would react, upon finding out that they'd each been dealt a few extra case loads. Reid's smile was definitely worth the soreness, and probable revenge, he'd be facing later that day.

**Author's Note:**

> updates every monday! (on the series not on this fic obvv)


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